A Description of the Yugumbir Dialect of Bandjalang

NOTES TO TEXT

'Acknowledgement is made of help from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies
and from the Geytenbeeks. The A.l.A.S. supplied funds and equipment for this project. A copy
of all field notes and tapes has been lodged with them. Hospitality at Woodenbong Station was
extended by the Geytenbeeks. Access to Brian Geytenbeek's notes on the dialect and discussion
with him gave much impetus to the analysis. The description presented here follows the tagmemic
model.

'Only examples actually obtained are shown, though from other data it is clear, for example,
that [p*]iiian is possible.

'A&L list the sound /dj/ as the same as English "j ", but Watson (who revised their vocabulary)
describes it as unlike the English sound, saying it was an alveodental or dental (it "may be nearly
pronounced by attempting to sound the initial letter in the English word jam without touching
the palate with the tongue, thus converting it from a palatal to a dental" p. 7). Watson used this
<lcscription for the similar stop in four languages, and he was most familiar with Gabi. If his
description is considered to be more accurate than A&L's, the shift to the English afiricate has
occurred in recent decades. Alternatively the phonetic realisation of this stop may have differed
from place to place in the area, or with the individual speakers consulted. One should remember
also that both Culham and Allen spoke English for the larger portions of their lifetimes.

THE YUGUMBIR DIALECT OF BANDJALANG 119

'Evidence from morphology is that the word for "stranger" should be djaguni, not djagu.l,
as the possessive case suffix is realised as /na:/. See also footnotes 6 and U.

'A few words apparently show free fluctuation between the phonemes /g/ and /w/ word
initially preceding /u/.

guginj/wuginj "quick"

gulbani/wulbani "hid"

"Culham usually pronounced /r/ as a rctroflexcd continuant, though sometimes as a flap or
trill. He had lost his front teeth. i"he same pronunciation problem occurs elsewhere in my data
with those who have lost these teeth, even if the person concerned is a native speaker of a language
in which the vibrant and the continuant are contrasting phonemes. As a result it was difficult
at times to know whether the plioneme /I/ or /r/ was meant. Doubtlessly a number of words
have been recorded with /I/ when /r/ should have been written. In particular what sounded like
/I/ word finally or preceding /b/ or /g/ has been found to be more probably either /r/ or /rV/. In
a few words there appeared to be two long syllable nuclei separated by a phone which was some-
times heard as [r], sometimes as [1], occasionally as [rl] or [1] (retroflexed lateral); this was inter-
preted as /rVl/.

gairala: gaifr/l/l/rlja: "playing"

gawurila: gfoir/otlja: "running"

These interpretations were made after comparison with the little data from other speakers,
Watson's vocabulary, other affixations of the same roots, and a more critical listening to taped
data.

'Occurrences of /e/ not followed by length are restricted to :

(a) the final syllable of the demonstratives mal[i^ je], gal[i" je], gillP'la], the interrogative
yilli" le] "where" and the pronoun njullaje] "he". In all other cases a word final short vowel is
[i^], [a] or [u^] without significant variation.

(b) in verbs, syllables that would contain /e:/, except for restrictions imposed on the occurrence
of long vowels.

In some of the verbs mentioned in (b) I have been a little in doubt about the phonetic quality
of the vowel. If one assumes short /e/ does not exist, one can force the assignment of these vowels
to /a/ or /i/, though the decision as to which to choose seems arbitrary in many cases. But if one
assumes there is a short /e/ phoneme elsewhere than in the above cases, it is much harder to assign
front vowel phones to one of three phonemes /i/, /e/, /a/ than to one of two phonemes /i/ and /a/.
Geytenbeek has analysed the neighbouring dialect of Gidabal as having four short vowels, and
in Gidabal jej is the phoneme occurring finally in the words listed under (a). In some dialects of
Bandjalang the final phoneme in these words is /i/ for all except "he", where it is /a/.

*The simplest alternative analyses are :

(a) three short vowels /i/, /a/, /u/, and four long vowels /i:/, /e:/, /a:/, /u:/.

(b) three short vowels /i/, /a/, /u/, and a phoneme of length, [c:] is analysed as /i:/, [i^ :] as /iyi/
(see under Morphophonemics) .

Solution (a) is a straightforward solution but it fails to reflect the link which the morpho-
phonemics shows to exist between corresponding short and long vowels, and between /i/ and /e;/.
It is also not symmetrical.

Solution (b) does more justice to the morphophonemics and is symmetrical. It also reflects
the fact that when |i^] is lengthened morphophonemically [e:] usually results. One objection is
that at a more subtle le\el it lacks certain symmetry. If [i'' :] is interpreted as /iyi/, why should not
fu^ :] be interpreted as /uwu/? Phonetically there is no evidence that these should be interpreted
as two syllables. Further [i^' :] shortens to [i^] where rules governing long syllables require it to.
If [i^ :] were phonemically /iyi/ this would not be in pattern, [u^ :] also shortens to [u^J when
required, but three cases of [u^ :] followed by a long syllable occur (see note 12).

°Onl}' one exception has been found: djibag and djibagbay, both meaning "spit".

^"Where intervocalic /dj/ occurs in Yugumbir, /d/ occurs in Gidabal. Gidabal has no inter-
\ ocalic /dj/. Intervocalic /dj/ in Yugumbir occasionally fluctuated with /y/ in Culham's speech.
gadjag / gayat) "grandfather"

"In the fust count of consonant clusters word medially (done by computer) the frequencies
if clusters /111/ and /!g/ rivalled that of the homorganic nasal stop clusters. The cluster /rg/ was
:ilso relati\ eh frequent. As noted in footnote 6 it is likely that manv words recorded with these
seciuenccs should have been recorded with /r(V)/ instead of /I/. An examp'u is the word for "koala".
Iriim (nlham it sounded like [bu^lbi^], buthespelt it "burby". From Mrs. W'eizel it was [bu'^rbi^].
Watson's \ ocabulary has burubi; it is possible that A&I^ heard and wrote a transitional vocoid
which is not a phoneme. On this assumption, and assuming also that Tiian\- but not all of the
clusters I recorded as /lb/ and /Ig/ were actually /rb/ and /rg/, it remains true that resonant stop
clusters (except with alveolar and alveopalatal stops) are as common as homorganic nasal stop
clusters.

'^Words derived from three roots do not appear to follow length rules. They are listed phonet-
ically, together with their first phonemic interpretation.

120 M. C. CUNNINGHAM

[du;'nj] /du:nj/ "fear"

[bu:i] /bu:y/ "breath"

[gu:n] /D"-°/ "hot"

Words derived from these are listed phonetically.

[du:»njdja;] "afraid" [bu:ye:n] "tired, pulled"

[du:'njdja:n] ,, [bu:y£:ni] "pulled"

[du:'njdja:gan] ,, [gu:nga:la] "summer"

For the first root and its derivative no violence would be done to the phonetic data to re-interpret
the root as /duiyinj/, which has been done. The second case poses more problems. One could
interpret the inflected forms as /bu :yiye:n(i)/, but this is not a very happy solution. For the third
example there seems no other valid interpretation than /gu;n/ and /gu:nga:la/. It will be seen
that in all three cases the long vowel is /u:/. With this amount of data it seems best to regard the
simple present tense form of /gu :n/ and the simple past tense forms of /bu :y/ as exceptions to the
rule on contiguous long syllables.

For forms interpreted as having root /bu:y/ here, A&L list three verbs, with meanings
"breathe", "pull along" and "pull off". Their solution may be correct: Culham appeared to use
the word "pull" in the sense "tire through exertion", so only one root has been postulated here.
Forms A&L give for their three verbs are listed below (no attempt has been made to phonemicisu
their spelling). For comparison, all inflected forms of /bu:y/ found in the present data are alsu
listed.

pres past perf fut-prog

"breathe" bui buien buiangan buiangala

"pull along" buyei buyeini buyeinian buyeila

"pull off" buya buyni buian buiyala

bu;ybu:y "breathing"

bu:ye:ni "pulled"

bu:ye:n "tired, pulled"

bu;yila: "pulling"

bu:yinga:la "gets tired"

bu:yanga:la "gets tired"

•'In Gidabal, Geytenbeek's data failed to show a restriction of ordering such as this. In
Yugumbir, Lane after citing examples of SVLT and LTSV orderings states "any other order will
do almost equally well".

"Comparison with Gidabal would indicate the probability of separate tagmemes for each of
these, but in the data there was only one doubtful example of co-occurrence of different tagmas,
and a very few examples of repetitions of the same tagma using different head words. In many
examples the form townmir "to town" occurred interchangeably with towngu: "to town (pur-
posively)". This very interchangeability would encourage one to class this accusative suffix and
the purposive together. Also the purposive suffix can occur on the verb of a dependent clause.
So in the absence of further evidence the classification of these tagmemes as members of the one
tagmeme is not entirely arbitrary. All examples obtained of repetition of location tagmeme are
listed below.

yange:n djinagga: towngu: nujianjgu;

go-past foot-loc town-purp food-purp

"I went to town on foot(?) to get food."

jiaw yanga:la towngu: nuganjgu:

I-subj go-pres town-purp food-purp

"I am going to town to get food."

jiaw yaru:len gujigi: barundi:

I-subj swim-past water-loc.past creek-loc.past
"I swam in the river."

wulani wadjug guybaya: djaliya:

give-past mother cook-inf eat-cont-inf

"They gave it to their mother to cook and eat."

"Two problematical examples are listed here.
gug darami:/darame:
water dry-(?)

(meaning uncertain)
wariggu: jiayu

cold-purp(?) I-subj
"I have a cold."

••In the data no location and time occur in the presence of instrument, but this is no doubt
due to elicitation.

THE YUGUMBIR DIALECT OF BANDJALANG 121

^'One example seems somewhat anomalous;

mu:g gabir ganji: djali:gi

stomach hungry I-obj eat-cont-desid-purpj
"My belly is empty and I want to eat."
''Gidabal has a set of verbal auxiliaries. Elicitation was directed towards finding a similar
set in Yugumbir, but with little success. The form djambamani "tried" was obtained, identical
with one of the Gidabal auxiliaries, but there was not sufficient evidence to show it behaved
differently from other Yugumbir verbs.

"A&L list four "parts" to each verb given in their vocabulary. A study of their list shows the
following tense forms (meanings given are theirs).

uninflccted stem {verb roots ending in /a/, /i/ and /e:/, adjectives ending in consonants):
present tense, present infinitive, imperative.
- :» (obeying my morphophonemic rules) : past tense.

-ian (replacing verb root final /a/ and /i/, added to other verb roots and adjectives) :
perfect tense.

-.la (apparently obeying my morphophonemic rules): future and progressive.
Their list attests the existence of -li (my "continuous aspect") preceding both -:« and -ian, a
suftix -ndi or possibly - .nd which precedes -ian in some verbs formed from verbs roots or adjectives
(cf Gidabal -ndij-nde indicating that the reason for the action is identifiable by the hearer), and
the existence of -at/ga:la (-at; + -ga + -.la) on adjectives. One sentence in the present data may
be an example of the affix - .nd on the root yana "go". A story sequence was elicited, in which was
the following:

yani:ndan dimangu:
go( ?)-(?) camp-purp
"They took it to their camp."
'"Geytenbeek labelled this affix in Gidabal as definitive, as it indicates that the information
is definite.

^'Some occurrences of -:m do not follow the morphophonemic rules outlined in chapter 2,
indicating a possibility of the existence of two affixes nearly homophonous as observed by
Gcytenbeek for Gidabal. For example:

njula duge:ni/dugeni

he cry-past

"He cried."
'^^In Gidabal and Bandjalang the affix -.nj signifies future tense, but all attempts to elicit
future forms in Yugumbir yielded the present tense affix with or without the continuous aspect.
A&l, provide no evidence for the suffix --.nj. In working with a Bandjalang informant speaking
the Lismorc dialect the author obtained the suffix - '.nj with future tense moaning with no difficulty.
The affix does not seem to denote future tense in Yugumbir. If it occurred at all, it may have
denoted probable action. The only examples of its occurrence are given here, with translations
given by Culham.

gawuy yaga:nj gumbinj gumbinj gaw bugani

I-subj make- :ny house house I-subj build-past

"I build a house."
wuna: gawuri ya:na wa:lu banga:nj wa:lu

neg-imp run-imp sit-imp you-subj fall-:«y you-subj
"Don't run, sit down, you might fall,"
^'See also banga.nj "might fall" from banga in the previous footnote.

**This form was unknown to Geytenbeek in Gibadal. One utterance was from Culham, and
the other from Mrs. Logan in the presence of a Gidabal speaker who also prompted her.

*'In Gidabal -ma is a causative. The Yugumbir evidence is not inconsistent with this meaning.
*"A&L indicate no objective ending for nouns. They show different possessive endings:
-nadjil for neuter nouns (e.g. djalinadjil "of a tree"), -Na: as a present possessive and -nadjil as
a past tense possessive on human nouns. They also list the following case suffixes which are not
shown in the present data, unless the second one is a reflection of -ba '.nji.
-ba "dati\e", "to"

-banu "ablative", "from"
"A&L give -walal as the pluraliser, which is affixed after the case suffixes (e.g. mibanjawalal
"of eagles", from mibanj "eagle").

''Other suffixes were found in the data, but there was not sufficient evidence to show their
exact usage and meaning, and most are thought to be fossilised suffixes.
guru:mbuy/guru:mbin "stumper" (a bird)
gudjalanj "little black ant" (cf gudja "honey")

qjabunj "girl" (cf djabu: "boy")

iiuganjbil "bird" (cf nujianj "food")

buyu:lgan "curlew" (cf buyu :1 "mountain")

122 M. C. CUNNINGHAM

dumdumgan "chip chip" (a bird)
guyuimgan "star"

gadjaga: "regent bower bird" (translated as God's (elder-poss) — it is

a sacred bird)
"A&h list an example of -djam affixed to a verb root.
njaidjam
see-neg

(name of a blind man)
'"In Gidabal a form like /gaw/ is used as a hesitation word, and in Yugumbir Culham on
occasions used a form /aw/ as a hesitation word. However the forms !;<iw and rfayti appeared to be
used interchangeably in Culham's speech, which would indicate that if one was a pronoun the
other one was also. In Gidabal the first person sinf^ular form (subj) is always t/nyti, and for Yugum-
bir A&L only give yayii. Other variant forms of the first person singular subject pronoun were
recorded: ^ay (9 times), ya : (once), yciwuy (once), and i)awyi4 (once). Of the nine examples of ^ay,
all of which occurred clause initially, eight examples occurred preceding a word beginning with an
alveopalatal consonant (i^ayu also occurred preceding alveopalatal consonants in this environ-
ment). Assuming ^aw to be a form of the 1st person singular subject pronoun, about 160 uses of
this pronoun (including all variant forms) were recorded in verbal clauses. At first the choice of
the forms yatu and Jjayu scemc-d arbitrary, with T^aw occurring about 2/3 of the time, but a check
showed that a slightly greater ((reference for i;aw was shown in intransitive clauses, and r/ayu
occurred with greater frequency utterance initially than elsewhere.

"The Yugumliir form for 3rd person plural differs from the Gidabal form njulamai). Culham
accepted the form njulamar/ when it was suggested as "the same" as djanabay, but never spon-
taneously volunteered it. A&L attest the form djanabe: for Yugumbir, and Livingstone records
the form djanabi for Bandjalang.
'"Watson, p. 4.
^^AUen and Lane, p. 2.

^'Regarding Ngara:gwal, Woodenbong opinion is agreed in placing it on the coast between
Southport and Cape Byron, which would equate it with A&L's Nerang people. Those at Wooden-
bong can give no information on Ngara:gwal and claim it is quite different from Gidabal. Allen
appeared to consider this coastal language as a dialect of Bandjalang, yet not mutually intelligible
with Yugumbir. Vocabularies in Curr from the Ngara:gwal area do appear closely related to
Yugumbir and to other Bandjalang dialects.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, John and Lane, John. "Grammar, Vocabulary, and Notes of the Wangerriburra Tribe",
Appendix to Report of the Protector of Aboriginals. Brisbane; 1913.

Capell, A. Linguistic Survey of Australia. Sydney: A.LA.S., 1963, pp. El, K12-14.

Cunningham, M.C. "Notes on the Lismore Dialect of Bandjalang". Unpublished MS in the
possession of A.I.A.S., Canberra, 1967.

Curr, E. The Australian Race. Melbourne: Government Printer, 1887, III 231-47, 286-93.

Geytenbeek, B. "Morphologv of the Regular Verb of Gidabul", Occasional Papers in Aboriginal
Studies. Canberra; .\.I.A.S., Ill (1964), 101-108.

Geytenbeek, H. "I'ersonal Pronouns of Gidabul", Occasional Papers in Aboriginal Studies. Can-
berra: A.I.A.S., III (1964), 91-100.

Hausfeld, R. G. "Aspects of Aboriginal Station Management". Unpublished M.A. thesis. Uni-
versity of Sydney, 1960.

Livingstone, H. "A Short Grammar and Vocabulary of the Dialect spoken by the Minyug People",
in John Fraser (ed.). An Australian Language. Sydney: Government Printer, 1892,
Appendix A.

Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. "The Social Organisation of Australian Tribes Part II", Oceania, I, No. 2
(1930), 238-40.

Watson, F. J. "Vocabularies of Four Representative Tribes of South Eastern Queensland",
Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of Australia (Queensland), XLVIII, supple-
ment (1943).

A Description of the Yugumbir
Dialect of Bandjalang

by
M. C. CUNNINGHAM

Price: $1.60

University of Queensland Papers

Faculty of Arts

Volume I Number 8

UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND PRESS

St. Lucia

14 February 1969